Norwood Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm passing it along to you. You're rolling through Robertson County now, and the ground out here holds more history than it lets on. We're talkin' about Norwood Cemetery, the primary burial site for the city of Hearne, and the stories this place carries go back further than anyone can say for certain.

The oldest known grave on the site was made for Mary Stroud Bolton in 1870, the same year the land was deeded to the City of Hearne. Same year. That's the oldest one we know by name.

But the marker is careful to say the oldest known grave, because there may be others. Stories persist, and that's the word the marker uses, persist, that patients from the Sisters of Charity Hospital, a hospital that once overlooked this very cemetery, were buried on this site. Those stories haven't faded.

They've stayed. And among the nameless resting here, there may be Irish and Chinese immigrants, the people who built the railroad in this region, workers who came from far away, laid the iron, and then laid themselves down in this ground without a name above them. That weight deserves a moment of quiet.

Among the marked and the known, the cemetery holds a Confederate soldier, C. W. Gardner, and members of prominent area families, the Hearnes and the Lewises, names that echo through the history of this place.

Norwood Cemetery is still the primary burial site for the city of Hearne. Still in use. Still receiving.

Some cemeteries are museums. This one is still working, still keeping its promises to the living and the long gone alike.

What the marker says

Though the oldest known grave on this site was made for Mary Stroud Bolton in 1870, the year it was deeded to the City of Hearne, stories persist that patients of the Sisters of Charity Hospital that once overlooked the cemetery were buried on this site. Among the nameless may be Irish and Chinese immigrants who built the railroad in this region. Other significant burials include those of Confederate soldier C. W. Gardner and prominent area families Hearne and Lewis. Norwood Cemetery continues to be the primary burial site for the city. (1997)